Family Engagement Night

We are very excited about the upcoming Parent Engagement Night. This important event will take place next Thursday evening, November 8th. Dinner will be served to all family members and staff members who attend. Last year at our first Parent Engagement Night, it was so great to see entire families dining together. Childcare will be provided by the Advantage After School Program. There are fourteen workshops offerred on a variety of topics ranging from nutrition, math, parenting, special education process and many more. Two of these workshops will be offerred in Spanish.

Hope to see you there!

Tumblebooks.com -- Reading Resource

Check out Tumblebooks.com, billed as 'E-books for E-Kids', for a variety of books (which are READ ALOUD -- how cool is that?!?), quizzes on the books, and a variety of puzzles and games.

You can choose to view the website in either English, French, or Spanish (simply choose from the drop-down menu on the right side).

Star Light, Star Bright...First Star That I See Tonight

If you have a star-gazer in your house or classroom, this is THE website to check out!!! Click on the map above to get there. Once on-site you'll want to click on 'Getting Started' in the blue menu bar. If not you might be clicking the night away! LOL

I want to thank my colleague, KJ Hax for sharing this website on his blog.

3rd Grade is VERY 'Scare-y' Indeed!

If you enter our building, you'll see some pretty 'scare-y' fellows hanging out in the main lobby! These are just a few of the scarecrows created by our 3rd graders. Check out the pictures below to see more of them!

Check out the slideshow HERE.

Mouse House Mural

The Elementary has a wireless lab located on the main floor. It used to be called the 'HOTS Lab', but has now been renamed the 'Mouse House'. Decorating it has been a 'work in progress' (and I'm not quite done yet). To make the space more inviting to our students, our Artist Extra-Ordinaire, Ms. Weyant, agreed to create a mural -- and what a mural it is!

By Monday afternoon the wall looked like this:



By Wednesday afternoon the wall looked like this:



You can see Ms. Weyant hard at work here:



And the masterpiece was finished by Thursday afternoon. Check it out! Isn't it B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L?



Stay tuned for looks at the final 'Makeover'!

Tips to Help Your Child with Reading

I was surfing the web this morning and ran across some information from 'Reading Rockets' on tips to help your child with reading. The information is in their 'Target the Problem' section which focuses on helping to "understand the specific problems a child may be having with reading. You'll find practical suggestions on what you (and kids themselves) can do to help students overcome or deal with their reading difficulties." There are sections on: phonemic awareness, word decoding, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and other sources of reading difficulty. Each area has an explanation of the problem, how it affects a child's reading, and suggestions on how to help your child. Check it out at 'Target the Problem'.

Do You Know What a Computer Mouse Is?

I have to tell you...I have a GREAT job!!! I get to work with children from grades Kindergarten through 4th grade and, boy, do they keep me on my toes! LOL I ABSOLUTELY LOVE working with the Kindergarten students. They take everything so literally. I'm keeping a log of the amazing things that they say and do in computer lab and plan on sharing this 'pearls of wisdom' with you throughout the year.

My favorite 'Kinder Komment' so far has got to be the following: I was teaching a lesson on the four main parts of a computer to my Kindergarten students. We went over the keyboard, the monitor, the CPU, and when I got to the mouse I showed the class a cute little stuffed animal mouse and asked them if this was a computer mouse. To my amazement, this student decided to take over and teach me a thing or two! I hope you enjoy this video as much as I enjoyed watching in amazement the workings of a Kindergartener's mind!

NOTE: PLEASE WAIT UNTIL THE GRAY BAR AT THE BOTTOM OF THE VIDEO SCREEN IS ALL THE WAY TO THE RIGHT BEFORE CLICKING ON THE 'PLAY' BUTTON.



'Stay Tuned and Stay Connected!'

Web 'Cubed'

[This post is 'cross-posted'.]

O.K. So I've been thinking about this for a while and finally decided to put my thoughts to blog.

You know how the web is considered by most to be the 'read/write' web? I don't think that is applicable any more and would like to offer a new paradigm. I think we need to view the web as 'cubed'. Instead of 'read', we should look at 'consume', because, let's face it we don't only 'read' on the web anymore since 'read' implies text. As for 'write', we should look at 'contribute', since again, 'write' implies text and we now have the ability to 'write' images, videos, audio, etc. And we have a new component -- 'collaborate', since so many of the new applications are social in nature and provide the ability to work with others.

So here's my new slogan: 'Web 'Cubed' -- consume, contribute, collaborate'. [And if anyone can figure out how to get the exponent '3' onto a blog, PLEASE let me know!] [Actually I would like to see it 'Web', then the letter 'C', then the exponent '3'. Help!]

What are your thoughts on this?